The other day in the newsroom a Daily 49er colleague of mine asked me a very interesting question: “What do you have against the Muslim Student Association?” Later that week, I saw an article rife with errors and falsehoods by a fellow columnist regarding Israel and the “mess” it is in.
I think it is time to set the record straight on militant Islamic aggression not only on campus but in the rest of the world.
To answer my colleague’s question, MSA here, as well as its sister groups on many Southern California campuses including U.C. Irvine and Cal State Fullerton, happens to be extremely militant. There’s a distinct difference between legitimate political discourse regarding the Middle East situation and plain old hatred, anti-Semitism and propaganda.
Inherently, I don’t have anything against a group standing up for its own interest — after all, that’s what America is about. I do have a problem with extremist, dogmatic beliefs that are completely devoid of offering anything constructive to the situation at hand.
Demonstrations by the MSA here on campus often devolve into nothing more than rhetoric spewing and stem from knee-jerk reactions by a bunch of kids who are just confused and are likely repeating what peers have said.
Do I hate the MSA in general? No, I just hate the message. It is simply wrong.
When Dina Al-Hayek’s column, “Israel ‘occupied’ in mess” ran last Wednesday, it further proved to me what I have always believed about the anti-Israel community on campus.
I don’t know if Al-Hayek is a member of MSA, but her views are definitely in league with it. In one amazingly inept statement, Al-Hayek says, “At this point in time, Israel has little to no control over its political and economic situation.”
Israel has nothing but control, Dina. Israel constantly fights for its self-preservation. And, while you disagree with their cause, without the unflinching determination and hard choices Israel makes on issues, the country would cease to exist.
This is incredibly easy to see if you look at statements made by many Muslim figureheads.
Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has called Israel “a cancerous tumor,” while Hamas leader Khaled Meshal has called Israel the “one and only enemy in the region.” In January 2009, Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi pleaded, “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.”
Do these words sound like those of a people willing to make peace and live in harmony?
Israel is dealing with religious extremists who believe a supreme being is on their side, as well as the throngs of people that these extremists have infected.
The “mess” Al-Hayek speaks of is not one Israel has created; it is one that has been created by all the forces within and surrounding Israel hell-bent on its destruction.
The MSA can continue to hold public demonstrations detailing all of Israel’s “crimes” and Al-Hayek and her ilk can continue to believe that Israel has created the situation alone, but these beliefs are far from the truth.
When a country that has known little peace in its lifetime, is surrounded by groups calling for its destruction and has citizens that are constantly killed and terrorized by extremists, it is amazing that it still even exists. Groups like the MSA and Al-Hayek would be content to see it destroyed.
Gerry Wachovsky is a graduate student and columnist for the Daily 49er.
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